[mythtv-users] Help needed - initial setup questions RE: SA3250 and firewire

[Joe Schmoe]

David,

First off, thanks for responding - I really appreciate
it.

--- David Madsen <david.madsen at gmail.com> wrote:
 
> > 1. I have a Scientific Atlanta SA3250 with enabled
> > firewire ports.  Is mythTV support for automatic
> > recording of HD and SD channels through the
> firewire
> > port completely nailed down, or is it still
> > experimental or buggy ?
> 
> I also have a SA3250 that I use for recording, and
> from my experience
> they setup still has much to be desired from a
> stability standpoint. 
> This isn't MythTV's fault per say since that side of
> things works
> reliably.  The problems I run into is that
> occasionally the cable box
> will get "confused" and for some reason will think
> that channels that
> do not have any copy protection flags set are "copy
> once" material and
> will refuse to broadcast it over the firewire bus.


How often does your cable company release
updates/fixes/firmwares for the box ?  This is not
acceptable, and further, seems illegal - if the letter
of the law is to mandate the existence of these ports
and thus and such abilities on those ports, then
having them refuse playback/record is a breach of that
law.

I would call them and point out that unlike other
"technical difficulties", this one puts them in breach
of the law, and then threaten to report them to the
FCC over it.


> > 5. Will mythTV + SA3250 + working firewire allow
> me to
> > change channels over firewire when recording off
> of
> > it?  I really want to not do the lame IR dongle
> hack
> 
> You will not be able to change channels on the
> SA3250 over the
> firewire bus.  This box does not currently have any
> support for doing
> like the Motorola ones do.  You will have to do the
> IR Blaster route. 
> I built a simple blaster and have had success
> changing channels, but
> occasionally the box drops some numbers causing my
> recordings to fail
> since the box is not tuned to the correct channel
> when this happens. 


Ok, this is absurd.  Sorry, but the IR blasting method
that everyone is using with their tivos and their
HTPCs, etc., is completely lame.  It's a duct tape
style hack that I will not be using.

Do you have any idea what the difficulty is ?  Is it
possible, but just disabled in that particular box ? 
Or does that box not even have that ability ?  It
seems that other (non myth) people (not with time
warner) are changing channels with that box over
firewire...

What advantage do the cable companies gain by not
allowing channel changing over firewire ?  What do
they gain ?

Thanks again.

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